


There When it Happens

by BobaMcFetty



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Angst, Blood, Character Death, F/M, car crashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobaMcFetty/pseuds/BobaMcFetty
Summary: Over the years, Betelgeuse has tried not to think about what it would be like to watch her die.But now he doesn't have to.
Relationships: Beetlejuice and lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66





	There When it Happens

He’s there when it happens.  
Come on, he knew it was inevitable, it was always just a matter of when and how. Breathers are delicate, and though she’s grown, he still can’t help but see a little bit of that waifish teen peaking through.  
Betelgeuse tried not to think about it too much, but it’s natural to speculate. Cancer, old age, murder, grizzly bear (never suicide, at least not while he’s around).  
Car crash.  
He gets an innocent kick out of cars. He could take them anywhere in the blink of an eye, but it was still fun to hop in a car together and savor the journey. Sometimes he’d drive just to listen to her laugh at the people staring confused from their own cars or trucks. “Oh my God, they really can’t see you!”  
But she was driving this time while he sat in the passenger seat, kicked back with his boots sticking out of the window. It’s dark, and she looked so cute focused on the road. So cute that he couldn’t help but lean over and plant a kiss on her cheek.  
And her little laugh and waiving hand was so cute, neither of them noticed that she had swerved into the roadside railing.  
He’s outside of the car, and she’s mangled in the driver’s seat. He snaps and she’s out, laying on the concrete while he hovers over her.  
“Lyds?” He already knows she’s not going to answer. He shakes her anyways. “Come on, Babes. Gimme something.”  
A light comes on in the house across the highway.  
He’s heard of this before and fears the worst - ghosts, often young women, doomed to stalk highways and byways. She doesn’t belong out here. As much as it pains him, he pulls away from her body and looks around at the wreckage.  
“Lydia!” No answer. He calls for her over and over as sirens approach in the distance.  
She’s gotta be around here somewhere.  
In a matter of minutes, the scene is swarmed. He’s seen a lot of chaos in his day, but this is a top contender. Mix the bright lights and uniformed breathers swarming the scene, paired with his own building anxiety (geez man, calm down), and you get the infamous Ghost With the Most stomping around the scene and pulling at his matted hair.  
 _“Babes!”_  
There’s a quiet, shaken voice behind him. “Beej?”  
He turns and finds her staring wide eyed, battered and bloody with glass glittering in her hair. Lydia Deetz, dead at 41, only slightly older than he was when he kicked the bucket.  
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” It’s said with such solemn finality that he feels a twinge in his chest. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t supposed to be his fault.  
He crosses the distance and pulls her into his arms.  
“Looks like it, roadkill,” she’s unnaturally soft in his arms. Her shoulder blade gives way under his hand. Her left arm shifts awkwardly. It’s like holding a bag of sand. “Welcome to the club.”  
She peaks over his shoulder at the swarming paramedics, the lights and yelling, the man draping a white sheet over- “Is that… me over there?”  
“Yeah, yeah it is.”  
“I want to go look.”  
“No, you don’t.” Damn her and her morbid curiosity. He pushes her face against his shoulder. He remembers a day a long ass time ago, when he woke up face down on the floor. Immediately he was flooded with a renewed vigor for life. The rope broke! How could he be so stupid to even consider-  
Then he rolled over to meet the cold, dead eyes of his own corpse dangling above him.  
It’s traumatic and she doesn’t need to see that shit. So he just holds her tight while the breathers breeze by as if they’re not even there.  
Charles and Delia Deetz, somehow still together after all these years, are back in Winter River, staring at a grave. Meanwhile, just up the hill, another couple stands watching from underneath that old dead tree.  
Delia notices them first, smacking at Charles’s shoulder. “Look.”  
It’s a quiet, somber moment as they approach. Lydia meets them halfway down the hill while Betelgeuse waits against the tree smoking. He knows he’s not welcomed. Charles avoids looking at him, but brave Delia gives him a curt nod. Charles tries to ignore that his baby girl is draped in a large, long, ragged gray coat. That his pumpkin is ice cold when they hug for the first time in years.  
Tries to ignore that she’s dead and smiling.


End file.
